Jensen Reviews

I have been in the horticultural and landscape industry my entire life. Over the last 16 years I have worked for several companies in US, and for a few abroad. I can unequivocally say that Jensen by far has been the least enjoyable for a multitude of reasons. The people at the very top of the construction division have never really worked for any other company before joining Jensen a really long time ago. The systems and protocols that have been grandfathered in from the original owners are still being implemented to this day. Simply put, the procedures that they inefficiently try to use are WAY TOO outdated, and they are desperately trying to play catch up with their competition. Jensen is trying to overhaul their entire approach to how they go about estimating and managing the projects that they have. This process consists of a circuitous series of redundant spreadsheets and meetings and presentations. Because they refuse to simplify, and adapt their "systems and processes" to be more streamlined by using basic software, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place..... they are too big to not utilize technology to improve their productivity and profitability, and they are too small (in terms of they go about getting and performing work) to actually do it. The office is not a people-oriented place. There is a lot of looking over backs to make sure that someone is not coming down the hall because they are likely engaged in a conversation about how absurd some of the things are that go on around there. The distrust in the office is palpable! Several employees are in positions where it behooves them to be out in the field interacting with clients and vendors. Some people in these positions are so afraid of getting in trouble with the higher ups if they leave their desks that they practically never leave the office at all. Management is so old-school in their thinking, as they believe that if you are not at your desk, you must not be working. Lastly, one of the bosses incessantly tries to correct other people's pronunciation whenever he can so that he may appear more intelligent than everyone else. He also unnecessarily gets involved with their bidding process whereby it invariably becomes overly complicated, takes much longer than it should, and almost always frustrates the estimating team. Often this involvement leads to Jensen not getting the job. *Anecdote: On one occasion Jensen hosted clients at a luxury box at a baseball game in San Francisco. A guest who was supposed to attend the game with Jensen had an unexpected death in his immediate family that day and was unable to attend the game....... I was asked by my boss to see if Jensen could get his tickets back so that someone else could attend in their place.